


Decompression

by queenofhell_proserpina



Category: Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Genre: Gen, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-05
Updated: 2015-10-05
Packaged: 2018-04-25 01:25:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4941364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenofhell_proserpina/pseuds/queenofhell_proserpina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is quieter now, without the buzz of Wash’s thoughts among them. Post-movie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Decompression

It is quieter now, without the buzz of Wash’s thoughts among them. After Book left (the first time, which had been as sudden and inevitable as a death, but not quite the same), River had noticed the absence, as she now notices the absence of Wash, of his hands on the ship and subtle mathematical beauty of what he thought was purely instinctual steering, little half-formed formulas and equations that drifted through the air and made it easier to breathe. It is quieter in other ways, though. Everyone is quieter now—word, thought, and deed—except Jayne, and Jayne’s thoughts are man-deep, stone-ugly, so she doesn’t listen to him much, anyway.

River still has Miranda in her mind, but now it's more tangible: memories and thoughts instead of blacked-out spaces and alphabet code. River has new nightmares now—or old ones, depending on how you look at it, and River knows how to look at everything.

In the engine room, Simon and Kaylee join together, little tadpoles swimming from his body to hers. Spermatozoa, seminal plasma, water, sugar, salt—River imagines have someone else’s fluid inside her and it makes her squirm. River used to dream of soft hands and warm kisses, but now when she imagines a man inside her, he is always made of metal and needles, piercing her deep inside (body/brain connection, cannot be separated, no matter how hard she tries). For Kaylee, though, sex is skin and sliding, throbbing heat. Simon is still Simon, bone and flesh and River’s blood, and River stays inside Kaylee’s head where it is warm and soft, and sometimes hot and fuzzy, and sighs relief that they are all safe.

It is Simon’s job to look inside the cluttered box that is River’s mind and turn it right side up, and even now he is thinking of it. Boxes have six sides, and sometimes twelve, depending on whether they are opened or closed, but no one will ever know how many sides River has. They are too innumerable to count, like counting stars or atoms or lies. River is a star and an atom and and a lie, and so much more. 

Simon knows now that River will never have just one side ever again, and sometimes she is afraid that he will stop trying. She knows, though, that he never will. 

Zoe’s thoughts are sharp, steel-cold and warm as blood. When she sleeps, she dreams of Reavers eating her insides, of the spike in Wash’s stomach splitting her open, but its only her body anticipating what is to come. Zoe doesn’t know yet about the life growing inside of her, and River isn’t going to tell her, because she knows there is a time and a place for everything but time is not a fixed construct and Serenity never stays in one place. When Zoe misses her blood too many times, she will know, and then River will count fingers and toes and reassure her that everything is sane.

Inara is lighting incense in her shuttle, and her prayers are still and soft and quiet. River always feels as though she is disturbing the serenity of Inara’s mind when she touches it with her own disorder, although Inara never seems to notice. River wonders, though, whether it wasn’t this intrusion, not Mal, that caused Inara to leave before.

No one ever notices River in their heads. The one who comes closest to it, though, is Mal. Sometimes she will be touring his thoughts, remembering a battle or a job or something they need to pick up at the next port, and he’ll look at her oddly (people are always looking at her _oddly_ ; River can’t remember the last time someone ever looked at her _normally_ , or if there is even such a thing as a _norma_ l look) and say, “You just keep your eyes in your own gorram head, little one.” 

Mal’s head is strange and sad and sometimes angry. He won’t even let himself think the things he won't let himself say, and that is what makes it strange—most people let think themselves think things they won't ever say. They think the insides of their heads are safe. That’s why River has so many secrets. 

River will never know Mal’s secrets, and sometimes she thinks that’s why she likes to be around him. So that she can be like Simon, always trying to know, or like Zoe, willfully not-knowing, or Kaylee, always experiencing, or Inara, with serenity inside her as well as out. Like anyone but Jayne, really, because River can only think about guns for so long before her head wants to explode.

Maybe someday River will be like Mal, with all of her secrets, and everybody else’s, lost within the black of mindspace, and the quiet will finally be real.


End file.
